5.000€ donation from health care companies

Med­ical-wund­man­age­ment, a GmbH from the health­care sec­tor, is doing with­out Christ­mas cards and presents for cus­tomers and employ­ees this year. Instead, the com­pa­ny from Siek in Schleswig-Hol­stein donates 5,000 EUR to the asso­ci­a­tion Fre­unde alter Men­schen e.V.. Espe­cial­ly at Christ­mas, cards and presents pile up at com­pa­nies and often receive lit­tle atten­tion. Instead of par­tic­i­pat­ing in this mass, the com­pa­ny would like to sup­port the cause and work of the non-prof­it asso­ci­a­tion for the ben­e­fit of elder­ly peo­ple with its dona­tion. The spe­cial fea­ture: the dona­tion is made on the ini­tia­tive of the com­pa­ny’s own employ­ees, who thus want to make a con­tri­bu­tion to the fight against lone­li­ness in old age in times of Corona. 

Com­bat­ing lone­li­ness among the elder­ly and pro­mot­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion in social life

The asso­ci­a­tion Fre­unde alter Men­schen e.V., which ben­e­fits from the dona­tion, is com­mit­ted to com­bat­ing lone­li­ness and pover­ty in old age. The asso­ci­a­tion helps peo­ple who suf­fer from lone­li­ness and iso­la­tion in old age through vis­it­ing part­ner­ships, inter­gen­er­a­tional neigh­bor­ly net­works, reg­u­lar tele­phone calls and var­i­ous events. The asso­ci­a­tion is active in Berlin, Ham­burg, Cologne, Frank­furt am Main and Munich.

The com­pa­ny would like to con­scious­ly sup­port the com­mit­ment to inte­grate lone­ly, elder­ly peo­ple into social life and to draw atten­tion to their sit­u­a­tion with its donation.

“We decid­ed to make a dona­tion to the Fre­unde alter Men­schen e.V. asso­ci­a­tion because, as an out­pa­tient wound care provider, the prob­lem of lone­li­ness and lack of social par­tic­i­pa­tion among old­er peo­ple has been brought home to us time and again in our dai­ly work, and not just since the out­break of the Coro­na pan­dem­ic. At the same time, as a wound care provider oper­at­ing through­out Ger­many, we nat­u­ral­ly also express­ly wel­come the suprare­gion­al com­mit­ment of the association.”

- Yan­nic Wetendorf, Man­ag­ing Director

Initiative for the donation comes from employees of medical-wundmanagement GmbH

The idea to forego Christ­mas cards and presents for cus­tomers as well as the own employ­ees in favor of a dona­tion this year was a sug­ges­tion of the employ­ees. Man­ag­ing Direc­tor Yan­nic Wetendorf: “I find the sug­ges­tion and the broad accep­tance of our employ­ees to do with­out Christ­mas presents after the can­celled Christ­mas par­ty due to coro­na real­ly remark­able. So it was nat­ur­al for us to sup­port this and this year also to com­plete­ly forego send­ing Christ­mas cards and presents to our cus­tomers in favor of a donation.”

The dona­tion was already hand­ed over by Alexan­dra Rieke da Rocha and Mirko Mau to Simone Suk­storf, who is respon­si­ble for pub­lic rela­tions and fundrais­ing for the asso­ci­a­tion in Ham­burg. The asso­ci­a­tion Fre­unde alter Men­schen e.V. is very pleased to be able to real­ize var­i­ous activ­i­ties and events with the dona­tion. Espe­cial­ly in times of pan­dem­ic, the asso­ci­a­tion is chal­lenged to cre­ate new ways and event for­mats in order to be able to con­tin­ue to meet the goal of par­tic­i­pa­tion of old­er peo­ple in social life.